


The Day of the Volcano

by endeni



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blanket Permission, Dubious Consent, Explicit Consent, F/M, Female Protagonist, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Female Character, Podfic Welcome, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 06:36:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11845992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endeni/pseuds/endeni
Summary: Jyn was taken from Lah'mu alongside her father. Yet, some things never change.





	The Day of the Volcano

**Author's Note:**

> Not betaed, so feel free to point out any issues. ;)

**1.**

The Project (always capital “p”, even in her own mind) has reached some sort of important milestone and the Imperials apparently feel like celebrating. It’s all par for the course except, this time, Jyn is supposed to go too.

“You’re growing into a beautiful young woman,” Director Krennick says in his usual overly dramatic way as Jyn’s father presses his lips in annoyance behind him. “Your mother wouldn’t have wanted for you to whiter inside these four walls.”

Which is rich coming for her mother’s killer but Jyn, twelve going on thirteen, already knows very well she is in no position to deny Orson Krennick something he wants.

So that night she makes herself ready. She puts on the dress she found laid out on her bedroom’s bed. The fabric is thin and a little scratchy, the outfit too frilly for her tastes.

By contrast and almost defiantly, she lets out her hair from her customary ponytail. She lets it fall onto her shoulder, straightened up and almost severe, just as her mother used to wear it when Jyn was very little.

When she gets out of her room she finds her father already waiting for her. He’s dressed in an impeccable white suit, a sad smile on his face.

 

* * *

 

The hall is full of officers, mostly human, mostly male, all dressed in identical and dull Imperial formalwear.

Jyn isn't sure what to expect. Food, flower arrangements at the corners maybe.

Somehow she hasn't imagined music, or dancing. But there music is and down the hall a few senior officers with their escorts for the evening are moving along to a jaunty, happy tune in a multicolor swirl of motion. Black from the officers’ uniforms, white for the scientists and louds spots of colors from the ladies’ dresses: blues and reds, greens and yellows.

Jyn’s eyes fall on a couple of beautiful Togrutas in skin-tight contraptions that barely cover them. They’re dancing together, movements slow and deliberate, attracting looks of disdain from the officers’ wives in their colorful dresses.

Sitting in a corner behind the Togrutas, a handful of men are watching them avidly, smiling ugly smiles. Jyn’s gaze falls on a dark-haired boy, perched on the lap on one of the officers. His lips and eyelashes are painted gold, the makeup running all through his temples. Through his open shirt, his nipples are dusted with gold too.

Jyn realizes she’s staring when her father bumps into her.

“Jyn--” he says, only to come to a stop and raise his own gaze to look at what Jyn is looking.

Jyn can feel her own cheeks blush, as shame, nervousness and attraction coil to her belly.

She realizes now what the young man’s, the Togrutas’ presence at the party means.

The boy’s eyes, they're looking out in a distant, almost vacant way as he lets the old man run his hands over his sides, lets the man press him closer.

Jyn suppresses a shudder and turns away to look at her father, feeling once again uncomfortable in her own skin, in this stupid dress they put her on, a show for others to see, as part of this horrible, ridiculous circus as the boy with the hollow eyes. “Papa--”

“Oh, here you are,” it's Director Krennick’s voice, his heavy hand now pressed over her father's shoulder. The Director turns his head around too, “Oh. Lovely, isn’t he? If you’re interested, Galen, I’m sure Captain Kovani wouldn’t mind sharing once he’s done with him,” there's something ugly and unpleasant lacing his voice. “After all, it's been long enough--”

“Orson,” her father interrupts, lips pressed together once more, his body gone rigid with tension, “Don’t be crass, my daughter can hear you.”

“Of course,” the Director promptly says, his smile as affected and insincere as his mock-bow. “My apologies, miss Erso.”

 

* * *

 

It’s far too late when they're finally able to leave the party and get back to their quarters.

Jyn keys in her access code and they step through, the door closing behind them with a dull _click_ that echoes in the silent room.

Then, Jyn notices something, a flicker movement.

The room isn’t empty.

Jyn goes rigid as her father takes her by the arm and pushes her behind him, but not in time to stop her from seeing that it's Director Krennick, standing on the far side of their small atrium, kissing the young man from before, the one with the mouth painted gold.

The boy stands there, pliant and unresisting as the Director kisses and bites at his lips, as he runs a hand through the exposed skin of his chest.

It’s obscene.

She feels again the familiar mix of shame and attraction, mixed now with fear and fury. It runs through her like some kind of electrical current.

It’s all part of the same power plays Director Krennick likes to play with his father, she realizes, this whole evening has been. Like a cat with a mouse, as if the Director doesn't have her papa completely at his mercy already.

“Orson,” she never heard her father sound so angry, so helpless. ”What is the meaning of _this_?”

Slowly, Orson Krennick lets go of the boy and turns around, a wicked smile already forming on his lips: “Galen, do you like--”

He doesn't finish the sentence. As soon he turns his head toward them Jyn sees a quick motion, a gleam of something metallic. Then the Director grows still, the boy’s hand pressed against his mouth blocking his muffled scream.

Jyn brings her hands to her mouth, to stifle a gasp.

The Director… his face is frozen in a paroxysm of outrage and pain. There's something embedded deep into his throat, blood smeared around the edges of his mouth and running down his neck.

He’s dead.

Beside him, the boy stands like an avenging god, staring at them with bloodstains on his hands and shirt while his eyes… oh, his eyes look very alive now, sharp and focused.

“Doctor Erso,” he says, “Miss Erso.” His voice is deep and almost rough. Not really a boy, some distant part of Jyn thinks, he's probably around seventeen, eighteen.

The young man lets the Director’s body fall to the ground, then kneels by the body to go through his pockets. “You should go change into something more plain,” he says. “Pack anything you care to carry with you. We’ll be leaving shortly.”

“What--” her father says, still taken aback. And then, visibly regrouping. “Did Saw send you? I-- can't leave now, my work… you don’t understand--”

The young man looks at him. “Yes, you can,” he says after a moment, tone deliberately calm and even. He has a blaster at his hand now. “You will come with me, Doctor Erso, or I will have to _make_ you come with me.” He looks at Jyn then, implication clear. “ _Please_ , don't make me do that.”

He sounds sincere, Jyn thinks, like he’d really hate to have to hurt Jyn but he'd do it all the same if he had to.

Her father is shaking his head, grabbing Jyn by her arm once more, urging her to her room. “Go,” he says, his voice trembling slightly. “Pack. Do as he says.”

“Papa,” Jyn tries to say.

“Hush, Stardust. Go.”

Jyn does as she’s told.

She goes to her room, changes out of her frilly dress, packs a few changes of clothes. Then retrieves her mother’s necklace from its hiding place under the bed. With shaking hands, she puts it around her neck, her pulse going crazy in her throat.

This is just like on Lah'mu.

Please, don't let it be like on Lah'mu, she thinks.

When she gets back out, her father is waiting for her once more, the young man by his side.

He has wiped away all the makeup and blood and somehow changed into nondescript clothes as well, the Director’s blaster hung by his side. He looks older, dangerous.

Orson Krennick’s body is nowhere in sight.

The young man looks from Jyn to her father, then nods. “Let's go.”

He turns to the door and punches the opening button. The panel slides open to reveal a very tall, dark figure, standing in the middle of the corridor.

It’s a droid, an Imperial security droid. Jyn’s heart jumps in her throat.

“Cassian,” the droid says, turning his head toward them. “The route is secure, the pilot is waiting.”

What-- but the young man, Cassian, is nodding again. “Good. Let's go.”

Jyn looks over at her father’s solemn expression. Then she hitches her satchel high over her shoulder and follows.

 

* * *

 

 

The trip is something of a blur.

A long walk, from their quarters to the shuttle bay, then a shuttle, then they board a ship and on and on, the paralyzing fear of being discovered and found out slowly ebbing away the more parsecs they put between themselves and the Empire.

Jyn sits quietly with her father, his hand over her own, thinking of their trip from Lah'mu, she and her papa and her mama’s corpse and Director Krennick’s satisfied smile.

One last jump and Cassian, their rescuer or possibly their captor, turns in his seat and announces: “We’re here.”

Jyn looks out the viewport to look at the planet below, at the massive ruins standing amid the lush, tropical tropical vegetation.

“This is Sergeant Andor,” Cassian says into his comms, “requesting permission to approach.”

“Come on in Seargent,” the comms croaks back. “Welcome back.”

 

* * *

 

They take them to a room, let her and her father put away their few things and freshen up from their trip. Then, they take her papa away.

He cames back to her after several hours and only to use the fresher and eat something before being taken away again.

“It’s okay, Stardust,” he says when she protests, “they just have some questions for me.” He sighs, running a hand through her hair, “I-- I tried to do what I could from the inside. I can’t do that now, but maybe I’ll be able to help all the same.”

“Either way, you’ll be safe here,” her father adds, looking her in the eyes, “That’s all that matters.”

 

 

 

**2.**

She stumbles on, blind and breathless, hands bound behind her back, a hood covering her face.

Her captors, Saw’s men, push her down on her knees before removing the hood.

Jyn is finally able to take a deep breath. She squints, trying to focus on the looming figure standing in front of her, more machine than man.

“I'm Jyn Erso,” she says, willing her voice not to shake, “daughter of Galen and Lyra Erso, and I have a proposition for you.”

 

* * *

 

The crystals deposits are burning down and so are the Imperial ships orbiting over the planet, overcome by the heavy rebel fire.

The sky over Jedha city has taken on a russet hue as the sunset light hits the smoke and debris filling the air. Cries of victory echo through the street: all around her people are laughing, dancing, crying.

It's beautiful.

Her shuttle tucked into a corner of one of the main arteries of the city, Jyn is looking out of the opening hatch and drinking in the sight when the sound of an incoming transmission calls her back inside. She switches the ship’s comms on. The message comes out distorted and interspersed with bouts of crackling static.

Jyn bends down and starts to fiddle with the controls, trying for better reception, when she feels a shiver of uneasiness run down her spine.

She stops, lifts her head.

Beyond the transparisteel of the cockpit, down the paved street, stands the lone figure of a monk. His pale, unblinking eyes are looking straight at Jyn, at her ship.

Leaning over the cane placed in front of him, he's a still island among a sea of movement and the way he's looking at her… Jyn can't help but feel that she's been judged.

Small wonder. No matter her reasons, she just blew up the very thing he and his fellow Guardians spent millennia protecting.

“--refinery on Eadu--” suddenly comes out of the ship’s comms, “--has been just destroyed--” and “--mission accomplished--”

Almost of its own volition, Jyn’s hand goes to her mother’s necklace, relief floating through her.

As it he too heard the message, on the other side of the transparisteel the monk’s serious expression shifts into a slow, wide smile.

Jyn shakes her head, feeling like, against all odds, she’s just been given a blessing of sorts.

Her fingers tighten against her crystal pendant and she finds her own lips stretching into a grin.

 

* * *

 

When she gets back to Base One, her father isn't there waiting for her.

Two men are standing on the landing pad in his place.

“Sergeant Erso,” one of them says, “Congratulation. And welcome home.”

Jyn starts.

She recognizes him of course. Bail Organa, Viceroy of Alderaan and member of Alliance High Command. He’s not the source of her shock, though.

“Jyn Erso,” the other man says with a nod, his liquid brown eyes staring down at her and, yes, she recognizes that deep voice, the lilting quality of his words.

Jyn’s eyes automatically searches the space behind him, looking for a tall, black figure. She finds the droid standing placidly by the ancient, massive walls of the temple. It makes him almost look small by comparison. Almost.

Jyn nods then, managing to pull herself together.

“Viceroy, Sergeant Andor,” she says, “Thanks.” And then, her brows furrowing: “Is it still Sergeant?” The Rebel Alliance doesn’t have much in the way of recognizable uniforms and insignia. It’s a relief, really.

“Actually, it’s Captain now,” Andor replies with what was probably supposed to be the hint of a smile. It mostly makes him look tired. “You can call me Cassian.”

She nods again. “Cassian.” He’s grown into the thin frame she remembers. He looks older and he’s sporting a beard now, but looking at him Jyn can still see the boy who stole her away from the Empire. Like a superimposed image, she can almost see the skin painted gold and blood red.

She wonders if when he looks at her he also sees the scared little girl she’s been, rather than the woman she is now.

“Jyn,” she offers back.

“Jyn,” Andor-- _Cassian_ repeats. Slowly, as if testing the sound of her name on his lips, savoring it.

Unbidden, Jyn feels it again, that heat in her belly, sudden and fierce, that confused knot of shame and longing. As if the years never passed and she was back again at Orson Krennick’s sickening party.

“I’m afraid you won’t have much time to rest,” the Viceroy says, “we have a mission for the two of you. Come with me, please.” And Jyn forces her gaze away from Cassian’s mouth and back to Organa, who’s turned to walk away.

Right. She follows.

 

* * *

 

They never reach the Command Room, the ringing of the alarms breaking out all around them.

People are screaming at each other, breaking into runs.

“--spotted on the horizon!” “What happened?” “--the Death Star, we have to--” just as the speakers blast out a harried female voice. “All personnel, emergency evacuation! Repeat, all personnel--”

Cassian grabs Jyn’s arm, starting to head back the way they came from, tugging her along. “Viceroy!” he calls.

“No!” Jyn screams, trying to launch herself away, “My father--”

“--was with the rest of the Council and is probably being taken to a ship as we speak!”

No, Jyn wants screams again, she can’t leave her father.

But she also _can’t_ stand here and waste time she doesn’t have. She turns her head, looking at Bail Organa. They have to get him out, she thinks, have to make sure he survives this.

“Jyn!” Cassian presses, “You’ll only get yourself killed!”

She swallows, nods, ruthlessly readjusting her priorities.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Soon, she’s running flat out, her hand around Bail Organa’s arm, the alarms a loud, never-ending clamor inside her own head, until she finds herself stepping over the opening hatch of a small ship, pushing the Viceroy inside after Cassian and his Imperial droid. “ _Close it!_ ” she barks.

Petrified, she looks out of the viewports as they launch into space, watches as a brilliant, blinding beam of green light hits the base and a sick mushroom cloud lifts up off the surface of the moon.

Not enough to destroy the whole moon, some detached part of herself notices, there couldn’t have been enough crystals left, stocked inside the Death Star itself.

Just enough for a first and final shot, enough to wipe out the Rebellion’s main base of operation, to kill those who couldn't make it out in time.

 _Papa_.

Outside, Imperial warships are engaging with the fleeing Alliance ships, the dark void of space alight with the heavy fire of laser cannon beams.

“Kay, get us out of here!” Cassian is screaming. A Rebel vessel goes up in flames in front of them.

Tears blur Jyn’s vision as the tell-tale tunnel shape of stars of a hyperspace jump start at the corner of her eyes, just as a cannon beam is shot in their direction.

“Prepare for impact!” Jyn screams. She grabs Organa by the back of his neck and forces him down against the ground as a violent shake jerks the ship and hurls Jyn’s head against the ship’s hull. She passes out.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up. She’s lying down, staring up trees’ foliage.

She blinks, once, twice, running her tongue around her parched mouth.

“Finally,” a bored voice says to her right, “I’ll tell Cassian you’re up.”

Jyn turns her head at the voice, at that name.

“Cassian?” she tries to say but her throat hurts too much.

She watches as the tall, dark figure of the Imperial droid walk away. She’s on a makeshift bed under the trees, on a makeshift camp of sort. The Viceroy is lying on another improvised bedding a few feet from her.

It comes back to her then, what happened.

She drifts over to Organa, lifts one hand to touch his wrist. He’s burning and his forehead is lucid with sweat. Under the standard military blanket covering him, she can see bloodstained bandages.

Suddenly, the Viceroy is grasping Jyn’s hand. “Jyn... Erso.”

And, after another breath: “The mission. I... have a mission... for you.”

He pulls her closer, whispering a few hurried words to her ear before his eyes go lost and unfocused.

“Leia,” he calls her, tightening his hold on Jyn’s hand.

“I'm here,” Jyn replies, her voice shaking.

By the time Cassian is kneeling down by her side Bail Organa’s eyes are still and lifeless.

 

* * *

 

“Your droid doesn't like me,” she says later, her own voice dull and flat in her ears.

Later, after Cassian and Kay-Too managed to dispose of the Viceroy’s body (mostly Kay-Too). After the hot, dry day has given way to a freezing night and they improvised a small fire.

Jyn is bundled up in a blanket, sitting by the flames, their heat seemingly unable to seep through her clothes and reach her skin.

Cassian half smiles, the smile that makes him look tired, wearier. But there’s something tender about it too, warm almost.

“He doesn't like anyone. And he’s not mine.”

“Maybe. He seems to like you well enough.”

That earns her another small, wistful smile.

“Where are we?” Jyn asks.

“I… don’t know,” Cassian says, his eyes fixed on the fire, “the shot tossed us out of hyperspace, the ship’s navigation is still out. Probably still somewhere in the Outer Rim.”

Jyn shakes her head, “We have to get to Base Two,” she says.

She’s tired, her head hurts and she keeps hearing the Viceroy’s words in her mind, over and over, as if they’ve been burned into her memory.

Jyn, playing the daughter for another father. The thought of her papa like a shard of glass lodged inside her chest.

_Please, please, please._

She desperately wants to see him, wants to wrap him into her arms, make sure that he’s okay.

A snort by her side. Startled, she turns toward Cassian, his head bending back to drink from a canteen. She watches his Adam's apple bob as he drinks, a surge of want running through her at the sight.

Jyn shakes her head, chastising herself.

 _This isn’t the time_ , she viciously tells herself and accepts the canteen when Cassian passes it to her.

“We can’t go to Hoth,” Cassian says and then doesn’t say anything at all.

Jyn is about to interject, to object when Kay-Too cuts in.

“There was only a 12.99 percent chance of the Empire finding out the Alliance base on its own,” he says emerging from their ship, its hull distorted by their hard landing. “And the base’s sensors should have been able to pick any Imperial activity well before it became visible to the _human_ eye.”

Jyn can feel the sarcasm at his use of the word ‘human’. She didn’t know droids could be sarcastic.

She shakes her head, trying to digest it all.

A mole, she thinks. They’ve been betrayed.

“What--” she says, “We’re cut off then. But the others--”

If the survivors fell back to Hoth and just walked into a trap--

“I don’t know,” Cassian says again, his voice empty, his hands closed into fists over his knees and suddenly Jyn is moving and taking those hands into her own and looking into Cassian’s eyes, into the pain and loss and desperate, frustrated purpose behind them.

“We can’t stay here. Somehow, we have to find the rest of the Rebellion.”

 _We have to find my father_ , she doesn’t say.

“We have to find Leia Organa,” she says instead. “The Viceroy gave me a mission.”

She tells him: a Princess, an old Jedi general, a mission out of old folklore and fairy tales. It seems like a foolish and impossible proposition but then there's nothing much left for them to try, isn't there?

When she looks at Cassian, she finds a peculiar look in his eyes. Something wholly new and dangerous.

Hope.

 

 

 

**3.**

Their stolen Imperial shuttle is almost crammed with people.

Some faces she recognizes (Melshi and Pao, huddled together in a corner checking their weapons), some she doesn’t (a few Red Squadron members; their pilot, the deserter, with his goggles perpetually perched over his head and a twitchy expression on his face).

There's been no word on her father yet, which Jyn chooses to take as a good sign: it means he’s either dead or he made it out and he’s staying hidden somewhere with Mothma and the others. Both outcomes are preferable to the idea of him having being recaptured by the Empire.

Bail Organa, on the other hand, has been sentenced in absentia to death for treason after his damning disappearance concomitant with the Death Star attack. His daughter has been taken prisoner in Coruscant, where she was attending a session of the Galactic Senate, and is soon going to be transferred to some undisclosed location.

 _Leia_ , Jyn thinks with a pang. In the end he called me Leia.

If they’re very, very lucky, they may be able to snatch her back during transport.

Jyn’s eyes drift from the main hangar space to the small fresher where Cassian is getting ready. She can feel tension and worry coil to her belly as anticipation starts to set in.

With a jerk, she gets up from her seat, walks over the door and lets herself in.

Inside, Cassian is standing shirtless in front of the mirror, holding a sonic razor to his chin, the rest of his Imperial uniform waiting over a chair.

It's one of Cassian’s old cover identities, one only he and Draven knew about. It's a risk but Cassian believes that, despite everything, the cover is still serviceable. Jyn tends to agree. Draven may be --may have been-- many things, a bastard, and a paranoid one at that, but not a traitor.

She lets the door slide shut behind her and Cassian looks up, settling the razor aside.

“What do you think?” he asks with a small smile, running a hand through his now clean-shaven face.

She watches him. Without his beard he almost looks like the young man Jyn once knew. Deceptively soft and vulnerable.

The tension in her belly turns into something else entirely.

She takes a step, two, until she's standing right in front of him, her body flush with his.

Cassian is looking at her intently, not moving, not doing anything. His deep brown eyes are looking at her like he’d be content to do that forever.

Jyn raises a hand to cup his cheek, touching the smooth skin there. She lifts her chin, presses their lips together.

Slowly, Cassian uncoils and brings a hand against her side, the touch light and gentle as much as the one of Jyn’s hand against his cheek, as much as the soft press of their lips. No urgings or demands, just warm contact, reassuring each other that they’re here, they’re alive. That they’re going to make it one more day.

Jyn looks at Cassian and part of her is always going to see the boy in gold and red too. So she kisses him slowly, sweetly. She needs to now this isn’t something he’s taking from him.

They kiss and kiss and it’s good and not enough, not even close, and Cassian’s arms are around her now.

Jyn runs a hand over the soft, warm skin of his chest, over the smattering of hair there, until her fingertips reach his pants, until she can hook her fingers behind his belt and drag him forward.

She stumbles back and Cassian with her. Her back hits the sink by the wall and Jyn bends down to take off her shoes, to slip out of her pants and underwear.

Finally, she stands back up. Slowly, Cassian lays a hand on her side, almost the same spot he touched a moment earlier, his fingers sliding under the fabric of her shirt to caress the naked skin of her hip. His hand is shaking slightly.

They’ve done this a dozen times already. Always in a rush, in the too small space of the ship’s bunks or stealing away for themselves a few moments of privacy within the dark, quiet corner of a room, a street. Yet every time he touches her it’s like the first time, like she’s granting him some unexpected privilege, like he expects every time to be the last one.

Jyn presses herself back against him and kisses him again, this time with tongue and teeth and the wet slide of saliva, her naked legs pressed against his pants the same way her shirt and jacket press against the warm skin of Cassian’s chest and arms.

She’s shaking too now. She can’t get enough. Every time, she can’t get enough.

She uses a arm to hoist herself over the sink. Then she lifts up her legs, wrapping them around Cassian’s waist.

Cassian lets out a breath like it’s been punched out of him.

She can rub herself against him now so she does, her naked sex against Cassian’s belt buckle, the rough fabric of his pants. A delicious friction. She’s so wet, she’s probably leaving a wet patch on them. She clutches at Cassian’s shoulders, shivers running along her spine.

Cassian presses himself back, his arms around her, his lips against her own.

“Jyn--”

Shivering, he kisses down the line of her throat and slowly tries to pull himself back, to loosen the hold of Jyn’s legs just enough for him to bend down even more (the memory comes to her, a trail of kisses over her belly, Cassian’s dark hair buried between her legs, _fuck_ ) but Jyn tightens her hold and brings a hand to cup his face once more, looking into his eyes as her other hand goes to the buckle of his belt.

She doesn’t open it, she just puts her fingers there, making her intent clear without need for words.

For a moment, they don’t move, standing almost paralyzed in their embrace, Cassian’s moist breath against the crook of her neck, Jyn’s still fingers waiting for permission.

With no access to proper supplies, they’ve been making do, using their hands and mouth. (Hell, more than ‘making do’, it’s not like it had been a hardship, letting Cassian run his clever lips over her folds, his tongue licking inside her.)

Jyn is late for her contraceptive shots and Cassian... she doesn’t like to think about Cassian’s past sexual partners and the requests they may have made of him. “I don’t-- “ Cassian had said, “I didn’t get the full checks yet, I don’t want you to--”

She knows. She _knows_. She doesn’t care.

This could be the last time she has him in her arms and Jyn wants him inside her.

“Cassian,” Jyn asks and Cassian raises his head, meeting her eyes and Jyn looks at him, checking, always checking. Gone is the dead, thousand-yard stare of her memories, his eyes are burning bright now, almost hard to look into. Or maybe it’s hard to look away. Cassian swallows, his warm brown eyes falling shut. He nods, once, then presses himself forward into a kiss and, as if time started running once more, Jyn falls back into motion too, her fingers making quick work of Cassian’s belt and zipper.

Soon, Cassian is sliding inside her (oh, _fuck_ ), his large warm hands palming her ass and Jyn, hands on the sink, is using her leverage to lift her own hips, her legs still around him, matching him thrust for thrust, trying for and finding the perfect, most delicious angle.

She looks up at Cassian, his lips parted and wet, chest rising and falling with his fast breaths.

She longs to touch him, to hold him, but she wants to drive him inside her more, she doesn't want, can't lose this maddening rhythm they are sharing.

Except she has to, after a while. She can feel her muscles burning, in her tights, in her belly, and she has to shift and rearrange herself. She looks around for a moment then extends a foot to drag near the chair, placing her foot over it, while Cassian’s right hand shifts over her other side, sliding under her tight, right below her knee, and taking the weight of her leg from her.

Jyn stretches forward for a moment, aiming for a kiss that she promptly receives, Cassian sucking on her lower lip, Jyn slipping her tongue into Cassian’s hot, wet mouth.

She settles back, then. With her foot down she has one more point of leverage and, oh, can properly meet Cassian’s thrusts now, deep, wet slides that make obscene squelching sounds, each thrust driving her tailbone against the hard surface of the sink. She's going to be sore, after. She doesn't care.

Fuck, it's so good. Jyn can feel the heat inside her building up and up.

Cassian’s voice, saying, half-whispering her name, again and again, soft and reverent like a prayer.

“Jyn, _Jyn_.”

Jyn wants to moan too, wants to scream, but she bits on her lip, conscious of the thin barrier of the door.

God, she could get used to him looking at her like that, she realizes, saying her name like that.

It’s so good and she’s so close already and then Cassian is there too, his thrusts becoming jerky and irregular until he seems to come to an almost halt and Jyn knows he’s going to pull off and she can’t bear it, can’t bear to let him go.

She frees a hand to press it around Cassian’s shoulder, firmly, gently. “Don’t...” she urges against his mouth, “ _please_ , don’t...”

It’d be okay, is the incredible, almost delirious thought floating at the margins of her mind. With this man, it’d be okay.

Cassian kisses her, hot and messy and desperate and... _doesn’t move_. (A girl, with Cassian’s eyes. If he doesn't come back, at least she’d have--) Cassian shakes all over, the jet black of his pupils blown wide, and warmth fills her inside. Suddenly, Jyn’s jerking too, vision turning white and unfocused in the haze of her pleasure.

Come back to me, she thinks as they stay like that, spent and still wrapped against each other, breathing hard.

Just don't die, she wants to say, I can't lose you too.

She can’t, though, the words die on her mouth and she’s left looking at Cassian in the dull light of the fresher, faces so close their breath mingle and their noses brush.

She doesn't need to anyway. He knows and he won't make her promises he doesn't know he’ll be able to keep.

It's almost enough.

Cassian softens and slips out of her. They break apart.

Limbs still tingling, she climbs down the sink, the beginning of a treacherous soreness at her back.

Silently, Jyn gives herself a cursory wipe before putting back on her clothes. She’ll end up soiling her underwear anyway, she can already feel some of Cassian’s come leaking down.

Next to her, Cassian tucks himself back and turns to put on the rest of his Imperial uniform, placing the cap under his arm, his mouth drawn into a thin, pained line as reality rushes back into the small interlude they carved for themselves.

Jyn watches Cassian adjust his collar, their eyes meeting over the fresher’s mirror. He checks his Empire-issued weapon next, then he wordlessly turns to the door and punches the opening button.

The door slides open, Kay’s tall figure is waiting for him on the other side.

For a moment, it’s like the years never passed. Just like the first time Jyn saw the droid, he’s standing guard for Cassian. For the both of them, this time.

Cassian walks out of the door, putting a hand on Kay’s shoulder in mute thanks.

The droid inclines his head in response then turns around, his optic oculars looking back at her.

Jyn follows Cassian out, the door closing behind her.

She and Kay will never be the best of friends, Jyn thinks, but there’s a new, strange kind of kinship between them now.

All these days, the weeks spent hunting down tidbits of news and Rebellion survivors, all the hours Jyn spent looking for her father, all she seemed able to do was wind herself harder and harder around Cassian.

Devoted, steadfast, _deadly_ Cassian, who cares more about the Cause than his own well-being, who’d probably follow her into hell if it’d brought them one step closer to victory.

No wonder KayToo is so protective and has been so weary of her.

No wonder she’s come to care for Cassian as much as Kay does.

She holds Kay’s gaze, a silent promise in her mind. She doesn't want to see Cassian hurt any more than Kay does.

“You trust him?” Cassian suddenly asks in a whisper, still by KayToo’s side, waiting for her.

Jyn starts. It takes her a moment for her brains to shift gears. Bodhi Rook, she thinks.

She does trust him. The question is: does she trust him enough to wager on it not just her own life but Cassian’s too? Cassian and KayToo’s?

“I trust that he has reason to hate the Empire just as we do,” she finally says, voice pitched low. And then, with more confidence: “He’s not our spy.”

From behind, Jyn watches Cassian’s head move in a curt nod. He walks into the hangar room then, turning one last time to look at her before stepping down the lowered opening hatch.

Jyn reaches for the ramp too. She watches Cassian walk off the ship into the arid terrain, Kay right at his side.

Cassian takes out the ugly Imperial cap from under his arm and puts it on and with his new persona. Jyn watches his whole demeanor seemingly change with it. His spine straightens up, chin held up high. He steps forward, leaving Kay to follow behind like the mindless Imperial droid he’s supposed to be.

She takes one more moment, closing her eyes and imagining a galaxy without war, a future after this. She, Cassian, her father, even KayToo. Maybe they could go back on Lah'mu, she thinks. A quiet life. And maybe… she’s _not_ a child person and the thought has only ever filled her with dread before but maybe… she can imagine it, raising a child, a girl with Cassian’s eyes and Lyra Erso’s smile.

It feels like the bravest thing she’s ever done, giving herself permission to picture something like that, ever for a moment, daring herself to hope, to deliberately consider the idea.

She opens her eyes again and punches the opening button, letting the ramp close back up over the solitary figures of Cassian and KayToo.

She and the others have their own roles to play in this mission, providing distraction and escape routes.

They’re ready, she thinks, looking around the hangar room, they’re going to do this, _have_ to do this. For the Princess to learn how to be a Jedi warrior and save them all.

“Strap yourselves on, guys,” she says. “Bodhi, get us to the rendez-vous point.”

 _For you, papa_ , she thinks.


End file.
